


Pathways

by Liyyah



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 04:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13850094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liyyah/pseuds/Liyyah
Summary: Both Harvey and Donna have watched their dreams slip through their fingers. But even in dark moments such as those, they still had each other.





	Pathways

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt I received.

Harvey watched as Donna slept, her eyes closed as she leaned against the chair. He debated waking her because her neck was _not_ in a comfortable position but she’d barely gotten any sleep lately. Between school, drama club and visiting him at the hospital every single day, she had been running herself ragged.

Her Spanish textbook was on the floor, falling after she dozed off and he frowned. He had _told_ her to stay at home and study for the quiz tomorrow but of course she didn’t listen. Donna Paulsen was the only person he could never win a fight with.

Suddenly, her phone rang and she jolted awake. Ruffling through her bag, she fished it out and answered, annoyance faintly written on her features.

“Yeah mom I’m still at the hospital,” she said, pushing back some of her curls from where they had fallen in her face during her little nap.

“I don’t know. Later,” she replied to whatever question had been asked.

After a few moments, she sighed before bidding her mother goodbye and haphazardly tossing her phone back into her bag. Without a second thought, she grabbed her book off the floor and shoved that in too.

“You need to sleep,” Harvey said, not for the first time since she’d shown up to visit him after school.

“Since when are you my third parent?” she snapped.

“I’ve always been your third parent.”

The corners of her mouth turned up slightly at that.

“You’re a pretty shitty third parent.”

“I know. Because you didn’t listen to me when I told you to not to bother coming here today,” he responded drily.

“You know I don’t listen to anybody,” she said. “Besides you’d be lonely without me.”

He _would_ be but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“And…my parents have been fighting again,” she admitted quietly. “So home isn’t exactly somewhere that I want to be right now.”

Harvey had guessed as much but the sadness in her voice still tugged at his heartstrings.

“It must be really bad for you to be spending every evening here with me,” he quipped.

A bubble of laughter burst from her throat, just as he hoped and flowers bloomed in his stomach.

There was nothing Donna hated more than pitying glances or apologetic words whenever she mentioned her parents’ fraying marriage. That was something Harvey understood better than anyone.

“Obviously. You think I’d be here in this crappy hospital room unless I didn’t have a choice?”

“I think you can’t go a day without seeing this face,” he smirked.

“In your dreams Specter,” she said, rolling her eyes but she couldn’t conceal the small smile that appeared on her expression.

The truth was that _he_ was the one who couldn’t go a day without seeing her. Donna was the sliver of sunlight in his gloomy universe. She was the only thing getting him through this whole ordeal.

“How _are_ you feeling though?” she asked seriously. “How’s your knee?”

“Still fucked up,” he answered lightly in an attempt to hide the bitterness beneath his words.

But Donna knew everything and saw right through him and Harvey found himself on the receiving end of one of her well known glares.

It had been four days since the accident. Four days since the doctor told him his knee was shattered and that he would never be able to play baseball again. Not like he used to anyway. Since then, Harvey had lost count of all the sympathetic smiles and false encouragement that had been thrown his way. He knew that everyone meant well but it was a constant reminder that his life would never be the same.

However, the first words that Donna said to him when she saw him lying in bed was that he looked like shit.

And Harvey did something he thought he would never do again. He laughed.

He could see the fear in her eyes but she pushed it aside as best as she could and acted like nothing had changed. She knew him well enough to know that he wanted space and so she gave it to him.

She was the only person who did.

_The only person who understood him._

But now, as she stared at him with concern, it was clear that she waited long enough.

“I don’t know,” he said softly, examining the sheets as if they were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen in order to avoid her gaze. “I was thinking earlier about college. Or _not_ going to college really.”

“Your grades are good enough for you to still get into a good school,” she said firmly, sounding a lot like his father.

USC had been offering him a scholarship. One of the scouts had his eyes on Harvey for a while now. But all of the carefully made plans slipped through his fingers the night some drunken asshole ran a red light.

Now, his entire future was up in the air.

_He was terrified._

“It’ll be okay,” Donna uttered suddenly, her voice warm with sunshine.

Her hand found his and she laced their fingers together, her touch sending sparks dancing off his skin. Just like that, the tightness around his chest receded.

“I know,” he said, drowning in her eyes as he looked up at her. “I have you.”

She blinked as surprise married adoration on her expression.

_And it was hope that sprang from this union._

“Come to NYU with me,” she blurted out.

Going their separate ways had been the thing that Harvey dreaded most. He’d told her as much last summer on a night when he stole a bottle of scotch from his father. Her tongue had been heavy with alcohol and regret when she told him that they were just on different paths.

But that didn’t have to be true anymore.

Besides, he needed a new dream.

That wasn’t right though. Donna had been his _first_ dream, ever since he was a little boy. He remembered when their parents took them to the park for the fourth of July and he’d spent the night paying more attention to her than the fireworks. The explosions in the sky couldn’t rival the ones in his chest as he watched the wonder and excitement that lit up her face.

His heart always beat for her.

_She was his path._

So, “I’d like that,” was what he finally responded.

“Really?” she asked, unaware that he would follow her anywhere.

“Of course.”

She beamed at him and Harvey could have survived the rest of his life on the light radiating off her grin.

At that moment, she let out a yawn and once more Harvey noted the bags under her eyes. Pulling his hand away, he scooted over to the other side of the bed.

“If you don’t want to go home just yet, fine. But you _do_ need to get some rest,” he said, patting the empty space beside him.

For once in her life, Donna didn’t argue and instead, carefully climbed in next to him. She took extra care not to jostle his knee as she curled up against him. Automatically, Harvey wrapped his arm around her while stars twirled and sang in his veins.

With Donna at his side, everything was alright.

“Thank you Donna,” he said all of a sudden, the sentence escaping him before his brain could catch up to his mouth.

“For what?” she asked, staring up at him in confusion.

 _For sharing your apple with me when my cookies fell on the floor during snack time in preschool_ he wanted to say. _For standing up for me in second grade when Billy made fun of my haircut. For holding me while I cried after my grandpa’s funeral. For answering your phone at three in the morning whenever I call because of a bad dream. For making me laugh. For keeping all of my secrets safe. For never letting me down. For never giving up on me._

Millions of answers ran through his mind but all of them got stuck in his throat.

“Everything,” he told her eventually, three syllables stitched together with pure affection.

She smiled softly, because she never needed words to understand Harvey. _She always knew._

“You don’t ever have to thank me Harvey.”

He nodded, even though he _did_ need to but he didn’t quite trust himself to speak just then.

Donna rested her head on his chest, falling asleep to the beating of his heart while he listened to the sound of her breathing.

And in the bubble that they built around themselves, secluded from the rest of the world, Harvey was at peace.

 

“Jay can I get a Macallan 18?” Harvey asked the bartender, abandoning the unfinished drink in his hand.

“You know usually when someone wins their first trial they at least pretend to finish the drink their fellow ADA’s bought them,” a voice that Harvey would recognize anywhere suddenly assaulted him.

He turned around and the breath was instantly stolen from his lungs as he saw her.

“Donna,” he breathed out, blinking as if he was in a dream.

She had appeared in those enough times over the past few years.

But no, this was _real_.

“In the flesh,” she said with a small smile.

Harvey took her in for a few moments, committing all that she was to memory. Her hair was straighter and she had bangs now. She was probably the only person in the world who could pull off bangs. But those eyes were exactly the same.

_He still wanted to drown in them._

“What are you doing here?” he asked softly.

“Looking for you actually,” she answered and his heart threatened to jump right out of his chest.

“Really?”

“Yeah um...I have a proposition,” she said, some of her usual confidence wavering a bit.

“What is it?” he questioned softly, part of him itching to reach out to her.

“That I come work for you. At the DA’s office. As your secretary.”

Surprise filled him at her request.

“You know I have a particular gift for knowing things and reading people,” she added. “That’s a skillset you can’t find in just anybody.”

“Yeah, of course,” Harvey managed to get out. “But...why?”

“I want to work for the best,” she stated. “And that’s you.”

Her words gently caressed his soul, coating his veins in stardust.

“No I mean...what happened to Broadway?”

Donna glanced down, avoiding his gaze as she spoke.

“That’s not really working out right now.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper but it was impossible to miss the sadness in her tone. It broke his heart.

All of a sudden he recalled another lifetime when his own dream had been shattered on the windshield of his car. It was Donna who had pulled him out of the wreckage.

_She was his life raft._

“I’d be honored to have you at my desk,” he said, wanting nothing more than to be there for her the way she had been for him.

“Really?” she was the one to ask this time, almost as if she was afraid he would change his mind.

But Harvey had never changed his mind when it came to her.

He’d loved her when they were children and he loved her now. Even though they fell apart.

She was still the reason his heart beat.

“Of course,” he replied. “We’ll make one hell of a team.”

 _Again_ was the word that silently hung in the air.

“I’ve always wanted to rule the world with you,” she said, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned.

Once upon a time they had ruled the kingdom in their little apartment. Without warning, flashes of that life crashed into him.

_Donna wearing his shirt as she made breakfast in the kitchen. Dancing around the living room at two in the morning, drunk on the Macallan he’d gotten her hooked on. Grinning as he would hear her loudly singing in the shower before jumping in to join her. Sundays spent lying in bed, covered in kisses and giggles and love._

“Here’s to being the best lawyer and legal secretary New York’s ever seen,” he said, raising his glass as he forced himself out of his reverie.

If he lost himself in those daydreams he would crumble all over again.

Her eyes sparkled at the toast and she knocked her glass against his before taking a sip.

“I should probably get going soon-”

“Stay,” Harvey blurted out, cutting her off. “Let’s celebrate our new partnership.”

He was a tangle of desperation and hope as he waited for a response.

The memory of the last time she walked away clawed at him and he couldn’t bring himself to say goodbye just yet.

“Okay,” she said, and just like that he was almost alright again.

The air between them was thick with electricity as they made their way over to one of the booths and it wasn’t long before they were half drunk and laughing at everything and nothing at the same time.

Her cheeks were flushed and the grin she sported was bright enough to light up the whole city. He wanted to live in it.

“Broadway doesn’t know what it’s missing,” he uttered quietly, the sentence rushing out of his mouth.

“Baseball doesn’t know what it’s missing either,” she replied. “But you do make an amazing lawyer.”

“And you’ll make an amazing legal secretary.”

_She was amazing at everything._

“Thank you Harvey,” she said, gazing softly at him. “For everything.”

A hint of sorrow still lingered in her voice and Harvey unraveled even more than he already had. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and protect her from every disappointing thing in the universe. He wanted to whisper in her ear that no matter what, she still had him.

_But he couldn’t. Not anymore._

“You don’t ever have to thank me Donna,” he replied instead, an echo of the words from centuries ago.

He saw the understanding that flickered in her eyes as she nodded.

_She always knew._

And in that little booth, they built a bubble around themselves the way they used to, the rest of the earth fading away. With Donna at his side once more, Harvey realized that he could breathe again.

Every bone in his body was screaming for her touch but even so, _this_ was enough.

Somehow, they had found their way back to each other. It appeared that their story wasn’t quite over just yet. Maybe this was merely the beginning of a new chapter. Maybe they were being given the chance to rewrite history. Maybe their ending included a happily ever after, after all.

_Just maybe, he was her path too._

**Author's Note:**

> Don't feel too great about this but whatever. Thanks for reading!


End file.
